Paul Fetler – Violin Concerto No. 2 – with Aaron Berofsky, Thomas H. Blaske, Arie Lipsky, and the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra – CD

Description

This recording, the first devoted entirely to the music of Paul Fetler,
features Ann Arbor poet and attorney
Thomas H. Blaske as narrator in the
evocative Three Poems by Walt
Whitman, written to commemorate
the American Bicentennial in 1976.
An elegant solo violin quasi-cadenza
opens the remarkable third movement, after which the narrator intones the haunting line, ‘Ah, from a little child, thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music….’ The phrase is heard again, reflected near the close and carried as if by a distant music box, simulated by a toy piano. A labor of love, Fetler’s Violin Concerto No. 2 mixes spry energy and elegant orchestration with expressively flowing melody into an irresistible tour de force, a perfect example of the ‘progressive lyricism’ that characterises his musical style.